Vernon Subutex Three

by Virginie Despentes

  The left-wingers are the scourge of the convergences. They rock up, scowling like a bunch of middle managers unhappy with the efforts of the cashiers. They’re offended by the idea that a guy like him can suggest that Christians and Muslims might have trouble living side by side. What about them, do they mingle? The reality is right there in front of their eyes in its glorious reciprocity: everyone hates everyone else’s guts. Cultures don’t come together in a harmonious melting pot with mixed-race babies scampering about and gurgling. Anyone with eyes in their head can see it doesn’t work out like that. But no, they don’t want to hear about it. They’ve been stuck in the same Benetton billboard ideology since the 1980s and they won’t budge an inch. But, if you actually listen to them – not that you have much choice, they never fucking shut up – you quickly realise that it’s just a question of labels. In general, they have only one idea in their heads: shifting the parameters that define their enemies. Those they don’t want to talk to, those they refuse to respect, those they consider dangerous, guilty. Those they refuse to listen to. They want war just as much as everyone else. But they don’t want to continually go around killing the same people. It’s a difference of scale, but it still works out well for the arms manufacturers. The yacht owners don’t have to worry. Everyone wants to buy their weapons. The left wing refuses to admit that Christians and Muslims can’t live together for long without killing each other. That said, deep down, there is a fundamental agreement: exclude the impure, the unclean, prevent them from expressing themselves. Create a category of massacrables. The frontiers might shift, but the attitude of the border guards remains the same. You: get out. I don’t want that sort of thing in my country. The only variable is who gets put into the camps. Who is torturable, exterminable. Who deserves to be excluded. Some people don’t want to live with bosses, for others, it’s Cameroonians, there are those who can’t bear macho chauvinists, others who can’t abide Gypsies, there are those who hunt down the anti-Semites in their own ranks and others who hunt down queers posing as married men . . . but we all wash whiter. We’re all on the side of right. All we really care about is legitimising violence. It must be in a noble cause. Because we’re happy to have blood on our hands as long as we have a clear conscience. That’s the only difference between the sociopath and the political militant – the sociopath doesn’t give a shit about being on the side of the just. He kills without the foreplay, without wasting time turning his victim into a monster. Militants, on the other hand, do it by the book: first the propaganda, and only afterwards the massacre.

  But in the end, what everyone wants is to be among their own. To only have to rub shoulders with people like themselves. No interlopers. And the best way to cement any group will always be the common enemy. Xavier is not an idiot. All the great fortunes in France have modelled their speech on his, and it’s not because they’ve been seized by a sudden burst of genuine patriotism. It’s because it is in their interests for the little people to think of themselves as true-blood Frenchmen, victims of the great mosque rather than poor workers expropriated by the one per cent. He doesn’t believe in the “great replacement”. It’s no accident that it’s a queer conspiracy theory. Men who live with straight women know that. White people realise that they have to reproduce. Just look at Marie-Ange, she wants another one. This isn’t for the personal satisfaction, they’re perfectly happy as they are. It’s because women know. There will be a war and if we haven’t churned out enough little soldiers to fight it, it will be lost before it begins. So they breed, they breed, they breed . . .

  The problem isn’t the birth rate. The problem is the Church of France. If Christianity could heal itself, the darkies would have converted long ago and they’d be observing Lent instead of Ramadan. The sharp decline of missionary zeal is a much bigger problem than people attending mosque. Xavier is no fool. He understands things. Fifty years ago, the Church should have built cathedrals in the middle of every deprived banlieue. And sent out their best preachers. It wouldn’t matter if they cuddled a few choirboys as long as they understood their mission. To help those most in need. To occupy the territory. Instead of which . . . the dumb fucking Christians congregated in rich neighbourhoods so they could celebrate the mass in Latin. How else can you explain why there are no French scouts in Seine-Saint-Denis? The only people who set foot inside the Basilica of Saint-Denis are tourists. Even Africans change their religion. It’s not exactly rocket science.

  Listening to Sélim describe what it’s like to see his daughter getting up at six in the morning to perform her ablutions before putting on her hijab to pray – this from a girl who was listening to Avril Lavigne and Miley Cyrus three months before she got sucked into Islam . . . it breaks Xavier’s heart. It could happen to his daughter. He’s been hearing a lot of stories like this. Girls without a care in the world who come home from school one day madly in love with Ahmed or Karim or whatever, and – bam. No more Haribo sweets – apparently they contain pork fat – no McDonalds – the cooking oil is contaminated – no vinaigrette – because there’s alcohol in vinegar – no more lip gloss – because a good girl doesn’t wear make-up. Sélim’s daughter got to the point where she had to ask the imam if she could still eat sushi. Because of the rice vinegar. Luckily for her, the imam said yes, Japanese food is halal. If something like that happened to his daughter . . . But what can you do? Xavier often talks to Sélim and, though he often says he’d lock his daughter away, it’s hardly a solution. When he listens to Sélim, he’s reminded of his brother – he says, look, it could be worse, she could be hooked on heroin. Five daily prayers or five daily fixes – religion is not as harmful. The dealers are the same. You can bet that the kids of the guys who sold smack back in the ’80s are Islamic fundamentalists now.

  As a result, when he’s with his daughter, he is more attentive than he used to be when it comes to the subject of religion. When he’s in Paris for the weekend, they always go to Sunday mass. He’s enrolled her in catechism class. You can’t expect your kids to believe in nothing but the sanctity of Samsung.

  *

  At the camp, he talks to lots of people who are different from him. It makes a change. But he can’t bring himself to stop hating the little ghetto thugs when he runs into them. Those guys don’t like him. And he doesn’t like them either. Where’s the problem? Hatred is invigorating. You only need to go on Twitter to realise that everyone’s at it. Trolling, insulting, fighting, it’s good for the soul. It realigns your chakras, as the hippies in the camp would say . . . because the camp doesn’t just attract left-wing loonies, you also get druids of every shape and size. It’s astounding, the number of fuckwits the place attracts. There’s something for everyone. Militant fatties, commie dykes, surly anarchists, university punks, political whores, macho transsexuals, people who are convinced there’s another level of reality and there are doors that lead to it, etc.

  *

  Stopping racism, that’s something he’s against. They claim it stems from fear of the other, of the unknown . . . What dipshit came up with that brilliant idea? Someone who went to a posh university, probably . . . someone who had no idea what they were talking about, in any case. Hatred is a form of contact. You can only cordially despise people you rub shoulders with. Has there ever been an anti-Peruvian movement in France? Never. Because there aren’t enough of them. No-one gives a shit about Peruvians, no-one knows any. Where are the Parisians who feel a knot in their stomach when they see a South American? Now, Muslims, on the other hand . . . The only fly in the ointment is that everyone gets involved. White people want the right to humiliate Arabs. It’s something they’ve always done. It’s amazing to think that these days it’s the other way round. That they can show up anywhere and terrorise us. Not a comforting thought, when you’re white. Firstly, because you’re not used to it. And secondly, because once that happens how can you feel superior? If you allow yourself to be walked all over by people you’ve kept under your thumb for centuries, you can hardly be surprised
that society is in crisis.

  The people at the camp don’t understand this. The minute he says, I’m racist, everyone looks at him like he’s a retard. He’s no fool: it’s obvious that Sélim is more cultured and more articulate than most people who vote for Le Pen. But he’s the exception, the one that proves the rule. The root of the problem is that my worth as a white guy is your worthlessness as a raghead. My high life makes you lowlife. My whiteness is something I take pleasure in only when you’re drowning in your thousands and no-one gives a shit. It’s nothing personal. That’s why every racist has a close friend who’s African. They’re not dumb. They know that, taken on a case-by-case basis, there are always exceptions.

  People tell him, it’s stupid to be racist, it’ll only bring you trouble, the whole thing is a nightmare. Maybe, but in the meantime, he finds it entertaining. While he’s waiting for his wife outside the minimart, he finds it relaxing to see that the group of kids a hundred metres away are not Spaniards from the south, but Arabs from France who’ve come for the weekend. And to all the good souls out there, I’m sorry, but you can spot them a mile away. They always have to be causing trouble. And it does him good to cordially despise them. It keeps him occupied. Obviously, he’s too old to get excited at the prospect of a war. No matter how macho and determined he feels, it’s not what he dreamed of for his daughter. He imagined her studying abroad, then, when the time came for her to start a family, moving back to live near him. Things are not going to go as he expected. On that, at least, everyone agrees.

  Sometimes he wonders if maybe he doesn’t believe, at least in part. If Marie-Ange asks, “What’s so interesting about this whole camp thing?” he laughs and says some people play golf, why shouldn’t he spend the occasional weekend dancing with his buddies? He’s always played the guy who’s been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. He doesn’t want to be caught nurturing naive pipedreams. So, he plays it cool. The people at the camp are his friends. He finds it relaxing, getting out of the city, getting a bit of fresh air . . . But, deep inside, a small thought has burrowed its way. There is something magical about the convergences, something that pervades their communal life. It is a very particular group of individuals who have nothing in common and yet instinctively manage to speak as one. In a dark corner of his mind, a space he doesn’t talk about to anyone, Xavier feels that it’s not impossible that one day he will say to his daughter: we created new possibilities. New openings. They are viable. We created a place where you can live differently.

  On a bench, he sees a tramp lying on his side, asleep, surrounded by the crowd of tourists. The guy must be about his age. Xavier thinks about Laurent. The tramp at Buttes-Chaumont, one of the permanent residents at the camp in the very beginning, when some of them decided to terminate their leases, give up their former lives. For Laurent, the decision was not difficult, he didn’t have an apartment. He integrated well, like Olga, the other dropout. Laurent would shuttle back and forth to the Zone to Defend in Notre-Damedes-Landes, he became politicised. It was not a pretty sight. A lot of people complain that Xavier is tactless, but when it came to being subtle, Laurent was positively crass . . . He was racist too, though closeted. He was the sort of poor bastard who would lie about everything just so people would leave him in peace. But he was there, and he worked like a black whenever he came to the camp, he looked after the dogs and he liked to cook. He put too much onion into everything, but he was part of the landscape. He was the one who first mentioned the “tiny house movement”. Xavier was none too happy about Laurent spending time at the Z.T.D. because they’re all crust-punks with dogs in strings, and Laurent was easily influenced . . . every time he came back from the Zone, you had to spend three hours talking him down to set him straight again. Then, one day, he disappeared. It was Emilie who found him, completely by accident. Under the elevated métro on place Stalingrad, lying on a heating vent. Completely shitfaced. When she tried to talk to him, he called her every name under the sun. He didn’t want to go back to the camp. He hated the lot of them. No-one ever found out what happened on that last trip. But redemption proved to be too much for him. After that, Olga lost the plot. She stayed at the camp. But, as though in solidarity, she stopped getting better. Xavier gets along well with Olga. Because of the dogs. They don’t agree on anything, but it doesn’t matter because when it comes to feeding the pack, you don’t give a shit whether you’re politically aligned or not. That’s the point when you realise that what people think isn’t really important. What’s important is knowing whether the two of you can work together without wanting to smash each other’s face in. And he and Olga, they get along. Since the day Laurent lay in the street, shrieking that he wanted nothing more to do with those punk-ass pansies at the camp, Olga has changed. It’s something Xavier can understand. It’s something they have in common: a certain reticence to being team players.

  And they’re right, both of them, to be on their guard . . . He has avoided thinking about it since his last visit to the camp, and yet he can feel an uncomfortable knot in his chest. Something is not quite right. Vernon came back from the dentist with that loathsome widow in tow. The news quickly spread – Charles is dead – and, each in their own way, they came to terms with this absence. Vernon said, “We need to talk,” and everyone gathered around the table. There was something fishy going on. Otherwise why say “We need to talk”? That’s what people say when they’re about to break up with someone. Then came the announcement about the inheritance. Well, the possible, promised, inheritance. Because there’s still no cash on the table.

  *

  Vernon should have been the one to inherit. It’s only logical, he’s the leader. Even if he’s not cut out to be a leader. Or maybe because he’s not cut out for it, because this group of fucked-up losers couldn’t deal with a real leader. They needed this kind of weird guy at the helm, that way they could all carry on with their personal bullshit without feeling constrained. They cohabit as best they can, and, all in all, it’s worked pretty well up to now.

  After the announcement, there was a free-for-all of fucked-up fantasies. Olga wanted to buy camper vans so they could be like real gypsies. Sylvie talked about finding a farmhouse to renovate with fields around it that they could cultivate. Just like a baroness, Xavier thought, they always want to be driving around on tractors. Patrice could already see himself taking a year’s sabbatical, he said, if we plan things properly, we could go round the world, all of us, we take a year, and we hold convergences up in the Andes . . . The notion of not seeing his kids for a year didn’t seem to bother him unduly. Vernon thought that Charles would have wanted them to produce the zombie movie he was always talking about with the crazy airheads he was so fond of. He had looked to Xavier, probably assuming he’d be in favour of this film idea, since it would be an opportunity to write a screenplay. But no. Naked zombies eating everyone in sight? Soz. He’s not twenty anymore. And he’s not about to start working with a bunch of former porn stars and prostitutes. He has trouble enough with monogamy as it is. Daniel, who had just arrived, couldn’t understand why they were arguing: they should put all the money into sound equipment. Because that’s what they do, they make music. The Hyena was the last to speak, she waited until she was asked for her opinion and then announced, “We should follow the old bastard’s example: put it in a bank account and get on with our lives. There’s bound to come a time when we really need it. But right now . . . we’re fine as we are. I don’t see the point of changing anything.” Patrice immediately sided with her. There was a hesitation. She said, “No-one knows where we are. There aren’t many people who know what we do. That’s important. If we start dealing in cash, we’ll be back to square one, and we all know what happens when you’ve got money: it’s never enough. Give it a couple of months and all we’ll be talking about is how to get more.” Pamela was rubbing her temples, it was obvious she found the whole thing stressful. “Yeah, but this thing about not having social security, it’s not a religion . . . we’re allow
ed to evolve. It wouldn’t do anyone any harm.” At this point, Olga, who was still thinking about her camper vans, said, “The one thing we do know is that we’ve got enough problems managing this place as it is with every fuckwit in a hundred-mile radius telling us what we should do and how and in what order, so if word gets round that we’re sitting on hundreds of thousands of euros, it’ll become impossible. I propose we blow the lot, in less than a week. We open an account, we hold the widow hostage until she coughs up our shares. And 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . . we blow the lot. At least we’ll have a laugh.” Olga had managed to tame the widow, and they made a disturbing couple. They had started discussing setting up a refugee centre that would also be a kennel. Xavier couldn’t help but blurt out, are you fucking insane? The Syrians will eat your dogs before you can blink. It’ll be war. She had hesitated for a second, unsure whether he was serious, then she burst out laughing – “The worst thing is you’re right! These guys, they’ve been through hell, so it’s going to be difficult to explain to them that they have to be nice to the little doggies.”

  It was pandemonium. Everyone was in their own little bubble, working their own crazy idea. No-one was getting angry, because no-one was listening to what anyone else was saying. It didn’t feel like the mood of the camp. It felt like any random group of individuals who had nothing in common.

  *

  Marie-Ange emerges from the minimart carrying two huge plastic bags. His daughter is sucking on a bright-red lollipop. She eats too much sugar. He doesn’t say anything. He hands his daughter the dog lead and takes the two bags. It’s nearly two o’clock. They’re not going to be eating any time soon. Jesus, he fucking hates weekends away with friends! But he makes an effort. He fakes it. He figures it will all be over soon.

  Marie-Ange is accommodating with him. She looks after their daughter when he goes down to the camp. She likes to tease him, mocking his tent and his plans to go to a rave, but it’s not hurtful. It’s all in fun. She claims she doesn’t understand what the hell he’s doing with those crackpots, but she can see it’s good for him. She says you know there are people who pay a hundred euros a session every week to feel good about themselves . . . O.K., so you need your bus fare, but we can live with that . . . It matters to him that she’s able to accept something that she doesn’t understand. God, it’s fucking depressing how nice they are to each other! Niceness has replaced love. What remains is this respect, this wish for the other to feel happy. A tenderness. It’s not as ugly as hatred. But it’s not as intense, either. They are both in mourning for the time when they really loved each other, when they believed.